The chances are that your family history fact-finding trips take you to some interesting places you’d never otherwise have stumbled across. And one thing that many of those places will have in common is a public house.
Perhaps you’re drawn to these hostelries to grab a pint and a bite to eat before continuing your travels, but even if a teashop is more to your liking, we’d like to suggest that the pub is worthy of a second look.
After all, meeting the locals in a pub can be a good way of getting to know a locality, some of your ancestors could have been regulars at a watering hole The Bell Inn by George Morland (late 1780s) you discover, and one might even have been the landlord. What’s more, the names of these pubs, and sometimes also their pictorial signs, will often reveal information about their locality. Here we’re going to take a look at these important parts of our national heritage. We’ll see how pubs came into being, and investigate something of their historical and sometimes architectural importance. We’ll delve into what you can learn from a pub’s name and signage, and look at a few examples of notable public houses. So, whether you find yourself at a backstreet boozer
